Chief secretaries, registrars general of High Courts will be liable for non-compliance.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has upped the ante on the States, Union Territories and High Courts which have not provided it with details of criminal cases pending against sitting lawmakers, warning that their Chief Secretaries and Registrars General will be made personally liable for non-compliance.
The Centre informed the court that so far a dozen such courts had been created in 11 States.
A Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, on October 10, gave 11 States/Union Territories (UTs) and the High Courts of Karnataka, Kerala and Tripura a deadline of four weeks to comply with its September 12 order.
The order has called on States/UTs to furnish data to determine the number of special courts to be set up across the country to exclusively try accused legislators.
The States/UTs which have not complied with the September 12 order are Goa, Himachal Pradesh Meghalaya, Mizoram, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu and Lakshadweep.
The apex court had on December 14 last year ordered these courts to be established to fast track the long-pending trials against MPs and MLAs in a bid to weed out corruption and criminality in politics.
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